Valiantly Blogging on a Number of Matters of the Utmost Importance, for the Benefit of All!

Friday, August 04, 2006

Tories still sober after 8 months in brewery

David Cameron doesn’t seem to be very good at running his party – which, after all, is the only thing he’s in charge of and so is indicative of how successful he’d be at running the country.

First, he promises to pull his MEPs out of the European People’s Party in “months, not years”. Then he fails to put together a new non-fascist rightwing group, and announces that it will be in 2009. Hopefully.

Second, he puts together a flashy ‘A-list’ of potential candidates (with requisite numbers of women, ethnic minorities, gays and minor celebs) to make his party more shiny and ‘representative’. Then, he finds himself unable to getthedesiredresults.

And now, after having cooked up a crafty public text-voting scheme to select his party’s candidate for the London mayoralty, he delays the whole process after a singular failure to find any impressive wannabes.

He does do the whole “I seem nice, wouldn’t you feel good voting for me?” vapid spin routine very professionally, but when it comes to organising anything or negotiating to make things happen, he’s about as competent and decisive as Boris Johnson with a haircut.

Dave's fine at the moment - all he has to do is make the Tories look "nice" and the general dislike of Tony Blair does the rest.

The problems are going to come when a) Blair steps down, and b) the Tories have to explain their policies for the next general election, because that's when he'll need some real substance to go with the style.